[Editorial] A Lack of Moral Conscience

Kim Byung-joon, minister of Education & Human Resources Development and deputy prime minister, has been caught up in an attack claiming that he plagiarized Shin Yong-woo’s paper, whose doctoral dissertation he was in charge of during his days as a professor at Kookmin University. Kim denied the suspicions, saying, “My paper was published far before Shin’s,” meaning that Shin plagiarized Kim’s paper. However, this seems to be a poor explanation.

Kim revealed himself that he took part in Shin’s research. He also made the framework for the interview Shin took on 400 Seoul locals. The result was shared between the two, and using the same data, one person wrote a doctoral dissertation, and the other person wrote a paper. Afterward, Kim said, “Since mine was published first, there is no problem.” To Kim, who served as professor for 20 years, I would like to ask; is this an academically clean conduct?

Shin’s dissertation was completed in January 1988, and Kim published his paper at the Korean Association for Public Administration in December 1987. This is merely a 2-month difference. However, taking into account that Shin’s paper was a doctoral dissertation, it was probably completed before this period. Shin’s paper was 120 pages long, in contrast to Kim’s 15-page paper. There are too many similarities in the title and content. Moreover, plagiarizing doctoral dissertations is a habitual practice in the academic world. Saying it was published earlier than Shin’s isn’t enough to explain everything.

In the academic world, joint ownership of data is permitted only when the specific source is revealed. By the time Kim’s paper was published in an academic journal in June 1988, Shin’s paper was finished. Despite this fact, Kim only wrote, “The data was collected from Shin,” and did not identify the source of information. Academically, and morally, this is wrong.

It is impossible to hear the other side of the story from Shin, who has passed away. Even so, the victim should not become the wrongdoer, and the honor of the deceased must not be lost. It is reasonable that Kim would request the academic world to discriminate whether he plagiarized or not; however, I wonder whether he who claimed to take up the university reformation has the morals to do so.